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The Bihar government has decided not to introduce the new textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training in the state on the plea that it is a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party's move to saffronise education.
Ram Lakhan Ram 'Raman', Bihar's minister for secondary and higher education, told rediff.com on Friday that the government led by Rabri Devi will not introduce the NCERT's new textbooks as they propagate the BJP's agenda of Hindutva.
Bihar has become the first state to decide against introducing the new textbooks after opposition parties like the Congress, Communist Party of India, CPI-Marxist, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, CPI-Marxist-Leninist, and Nationalist Congress Party demanded the withdrawal of the textbooks.
The NCERT released its new textbooks in Hindi and the social sciences last month, six months after the current academic session began.
The textbooks were released after the Supreme Court cleared the new syllabus for Hindi and social sciences under the National Curriculum Framework for School Education.
The Supreme Court had earlier stayed the release of these textbooks following a controversy that they promoted the Hindutva ideology and that the Central Advisory Board on Education had not been consulted before changes were incorporated.
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